Doing business right

I WONDER HOW it would be possible to integrate the responsible thing to do into a profitable business model.

For instance, a credit-issuing bank that actually tells and wants you to live within your means.

Or a car manufacturer or oil company that discourages you from exacerbating traffic in Manila.

Or a telco that shows how much better your life would be if you disconnected once in a while and took it easy on the likes, selfies, and the real-time notifications, and the FOMO.

Or a Philippine call center that recruits millennials without calling them millennials and without the photo of millennials in stylized interlocking arms or improbable mid-air leaps of job ecstasy.

A fashion retailer that says you really don't need anything new every occasion. That you'll be just fine repeating an outfit. And that your true friends hardly see you for the in-season designs you wear but for the genuine person you are to them.

A mall that believes we have far too many holidays and doesn't invent additional ones to get you spending on things you don't need.

WE'RE FAR TOO advanced a species to even have to argue that businesses have a responsibility to uplift the status of humanity, not just society.

I hope the next wave of big things come from businesses that can crack profitable business models from doing what's obviously right for humanity. Not some false Corporate Social Responsibility program or a marketing buy-one/give-one-to-the-needy gimmick. But businesses whose profitability really depends on doing the responsible thing.

After all, what bigger business innovation could there be than uplifting humanity?